a deep breath

I hate when I freak out!! Once I have a melt down I roll with it and freak out about every possible thing.....When I was driving home from work I started freaking out about my job security, then about my ability to even do my job, then how I would see my son less because his father may get a permanent job in the Bay Area, then how I don't have money.....and I kept rolling and rolling in negativity until I started crying and the weather made me feel even worse with it being rainy and grey. I calmed down once I couldn't see behind my tears and rain.

All I wanted was to be with Will and the baby.

But, instead I came home to an empty house.

I was done with my pity party and so I had a glass of wine and corn bread and a talk with my friend Huan......He helped me feel better.

the end.

My little Artist is the only one that can paint my sorrows away.....He makes me happy

i love this, REALLY love it

"When a woman has a kingdom heart, she has an active understanding of what matters most to the heart of God. She lives in the balance of passion and contentment. She learns to love well, give without regard to self, and forgive without hesitation. The woman with a kingdom heart may have a duffel bag full of possessions or enough treasures to fill a mansion, but she has learned to hold them with an open hand. Hold everything with open hands. I don't think we are ever allowed to grab hold of anything or anyone as though they matter more than the kingdom of heaven. When you hold relationships with open hands, then people come in and out of your life as gifts of grace to be cherished and enjoyed, not objects to be owned and manipulated. And then when you hold your dreams with open hands, you get to watch God resurrect what seemed dead and multiply what seemed small."

I'm done trying to look ahead.PERIOD.

I met a guy today who supposedly reads tarot cards and palms. He read mine. He said:I would have 3 kids, It will take 5 men to get to "the one" (I'm 3 down).....so one more heartbreak to go and I'll finally meet him. I will always have to work for everything I have. He also said I will always be the bread winner, and that I need to stop trying to do things for men, but allow them to do things for me.

mmm....interesting.

I don't know what my future holds, but I do know I should never take short-cuts. Short cuts in trying to make money, obtaining love, career, a home. I realized that because I lost an opportunity to make some profits recently because I tried to take a short cut, well if you knew all the details of my last relationship it spells out NO SHORT CUTS, and as cliche as it is Life is a lot about the journey not the destination. So, if I took more short cuts, then I would lose A LOT of Life.

I lose patience often, like yesterday with my son. He kept crying and crying and I didn't know why he was crying and being so fussy....I sternly got really angry with him which didn't help the situation and then I felt even more horrible. I tried to take a short cut with my son's emotions, it didn't work.

I think my life path is a slow and steady pace....not a short cut journey for me. My friend the other day said why can't periods be one hour?! Why can't we sit on the toilet for one hour and bleed it all out and be done with it?!

Because, that my friend would be a SHORT-CUT.

If periods lasted for an hour maybe we wouldn't have the cravings, the bitchiness, the emotional roller coasters that make us Women! More importantly we wouldn't have our Periods to blame for the bitchiness, the cravings, the emotional roller coasters.

So, maybe it's good that our periods don't last for an hour it gives us a short-cut to explain why we are women! especially when we are bitchy.

These are my craving, bitchy, emotional, LOVELY girlfriends that I have missed. I ADORE THEM
PERIODS AND ALL.

No Short-Cuts to Marriage, either

Me and my thoughts

As I was lying in bed putting Will to sleep I started to think about a friend of mine who just had a baby girl. She and her boyfriend, who is also the father of her daughter, broke up. The baby is only 2 months old. I started wondering how she was feeling, I started thinking about how I felt.

When you're child-less and single, it is pretty great. Sure, there are those moments of loneliness and the need for affection, but over-all being single in your mid to late twenties was fabulous, at least from what I remember. But, when you're single and have a child, it sometimes feels lonelier and sometimes the need for affection is greater.

I am new to all this and I have read other single mama's blogs who beg to differ on the cons of being a single mom.....most toot the horn on the greatness of it, which makes absolute sense, but since I am a new single mama I am still going through the process of completely and contently accepting it. I understand all the great things about it, but I also understand the great things about having a partner.

Part of the difficulty with it is that I grew up in a traditional family. Traditional family meaning a mom and dad. I wanted that for my child too. I loved my childhood so it's only normal to want it for my little guy as well.

My life, however has taken on a different path and I have to really practice on controlling my Shenpa so that I don't develop resentment, sadness and un-acceptance due to my circumstance. I find peace in knowing that there are great things in my circumstance, like baby Will of course! and that I am taking care of myself and my son and that is an empowering feeling.

US

Shenpa

I used to pour every thought out of me as if my mouth were a faucet and my words were water gushing out turbulently. I still do sometimes, that's just who I am and I guess this blog is sort of that. However, I know I have turned that faucet off a bit or at least I'm learning how to trickle my words out rather than spraying it out with great force. I just recently learned the tibetans have a word for fleeting feelings turbulently being sprayed out. It's called Shenpa. Shenpa means hooked, hooked on a thought, that a person makes it tangible enough that a reaction occurs. A physical and mental reaction.

For example if someone said a hurtful comment like, mmmm? let's use something relevant. If someone that you were in love with said," I'm not in love with you, we are like oil and water we will never mix" how would you feel? Well, speaking from experience my body started to tighten and my stomach ached, I wanted to cry but I couldn't because I wanted to sob uncontrollably but I couldn't because I was at work. Then, I began to feel sadness and anger throughout my veins- that's Shenpa. I got hooked by that statement and allowed the feelings to control me rather than taking control of my feelings.

What if I reacted differently? Instead of reacting the way I did, What if I took several deep breaths and paused for a moment? I don't know how I would have felt because that did not happen. Instead I left work early that day sick to my stomach.

I just finished my book, "Practicing Peace In Times of War" by Pema Chodron and that is where I learned about Shenpa. I am currently practicing pausing before I react. It is a very difficult practice because I am so accustomed to reacting out of thin air and getting hooked by anything said to me, whether it be a compliment or an insult.

Getting that hooked feeling is not a good thing for me because I begin to run with my thoughts to places I shouldn't run and I only create anxiety, sadness, anger. So, when I am aware of that hooked feeling I take a deep breath and give that thought some space and it usually works to make that icky thought dissipate, but it is constant practice. Another skill I am pro-actively trying to practice, being consistent. It's June first a new month, a fresh clean slate so here's to practicing consistency and my Shenpa, Wish me luck!